Historically, the generation and distribution of electrical energy has involved the use of very large, centralized generation plants, strategically located, often close to fuel sources and/or water bodies for cooling. The generation plants are interconnected through a nationwide electrical grid which enables the distributed transmission of the generated electrical power to remotely located consumers. For a number of reasons, including the centralized location of power plants and the regulatory environment under which the power generators function, the generation of power historically has been and continues to be largely done by the burning of fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) to drive large turbine generators. Although improvements have been made over the years, the existing processes of converting heat energy, from the burning of fuels, to the generation of electrical energy, function at relatively low energy efficiencies. Because a large percentage of the heat generated from the burning of fuels is not able to be converted to electrical energy, the process results in the discharge of huge amounts of heat into the ambient. This not only wastes the energy but can also create environmental issues.
In some instances a small portion of the rejected heat from an electrical generating facility may be distributed locally through steam piping systems to provide local heating and/or chilling services. However, this necessarily is a highly localized service because thermal energy is not easily distributed over long distances. Accordingly such localized heating/chilling services are of much smaller geographical scope than that of the electrical grid, which can readily transmit electrical energy over great distances. Moreover, many generating plants are located at a substantial distance from areas of dense population, in which case the ability to utilize otherwise wasted heat energy to provide localized heating/chilling services may be negligible. A better system is needed that enables higher efficiencies in the conversion of thermal energies to more useful forms in order to extract more benefits therefrom.